Kindergarten

March 2012 Newsletter

                 

March is an exciting and busy time of the year! We have lots of great activities planned with our students this month. :)

 

IMPORTANT DATES:

 March 2: Dr. Seuss’s Birthday! Remember all your favorite books from childhood? The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, Hop on Pop? Well we will celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday with lots of great
activities and reading, which is always a win, win for the kids!  

Your child is also invited to wear red, black and white in honor of our favorite mischievous cat. 

 

 

March 8: 1^st grade PTA meeting (if you have older siblings)

 

March 13: Math Night: This is a great night to bring your children and come out and walk around Publix (or Kroger, location will be announced soon) and help your child learn a little math while you’re having fun at the same time.

 

March 15: Sewell Park “Rocks” fieldtrip: This is a great fieldtrip that covers several of our science standards from the year, focusing on rocks, living and non-living, classifying by texture, size, shape and many others. It is a walking fieldtrip that we have been taking for years and is a wonderful experience for the students.

 

 

March 19: Report cards go home!! This is a great time to go over your child’s report card with them and talk about all of the things that they have learned and start reviewing the ones that they may need some help with. Please go over the behavior section with them and make sure that they know what your expectations are for them. Please sign your child’s white card and return it to your teacher inside the golden envelope.

 

 

March 23: Taste of the Park!!! This is a wonderful night filled with great food and friends. Basically, you will bring your whole family and buy a ticket to sample the food from around the world. Families and businesses from the area bring in food such as chick-fil-a chicken nuggets, Italian, Mexican, Indian, Thai, and many others. Your ticket will let you sample a certain number of dishes. It has always been a wonderful night!

 

March 28: Going Buggy!!! Yes, bugs! The kids love this in-school fieldtrip where someone will bring in all kinds of fascinating bugs to show the children that they probably have never seen up close. We are so blessed to have someone come in and teach the kids about the wonderful world of bugs. 

 

March 30: School Wide Walk: The entire school goes on a walk through the neighborhood beside the school during their PE time. All parents and siblings are welcome to join us on our walk. There are police officers keeping us safe and we have enjoyed this walk for many years.

 

 

 

March 30: Beginning of Spring Break!!!! Whoohooooo!!! Spring break is from April 2-April 6^th. Enjoy this wonderful time with your families!

 

 

The following are concepts that we will be focusing on during the 4th nine weeks of school. The bold/underlined standards are new this quarter.

 

 

 

 

Reading Readiness/ Reading:

1. Students will demonstrate knowledge of the following concepts of print: front/back cover of a book, top /bottom of the page, tracking print from left to right/top to bottom, distinguishing among letters/words/sentences.
2. Identify all the upper case and lower case letters of the alphabet.
3. Distinguish rhyming and non-rhyming words, as well as produce rhyming words.
4. Retell important details from a story, including beginning and ending.
5. Blend and segment syllables in spoken words. Even though your child may not be able to describe it, they should be able to clap out the syllables in their names. This is a fun activity that all our kindergarten classes are exposed to!
6. Indentify  and produce all consonant sounds including the “soft G” and “soft C”.
7. Produce and match all 5 short vowel sounds.
8. Blend sounds to read one syllable decodable words.
9. Read 40 or more high frequency words.
10.  Independently read level C texts with 95% accuracy.

 

WRITING:

1. Print first and last name beginning with uppercase followed by lowercase letters.
2. Accurately print all upper and lowercase letters.
3. Use left to right pattern in writing, and begins to use punctuation.
4. Writes sentences using phonetically written words to describe familiar persons, places, objects or experiences.

 

MATHEMATICS:

1. Write numerals through 20 to label sets.

2. Produce models for number words through ten.

3. Sequence and identify using ordinal numbers (1^st-10^th).

4. Identify and give the value for penny, nickel, dime and quarter.

5. Make fair trades between pennies and nickels AND pennies and dimes.

6. Compares all 2 and 3 dimensional figures and identifies the similarities and differences between them.

7.  Transfers patterns in a different context with attributes similar to a given pattern using actions, objects and geometric shapes.

 

 

 

SOCIAL STUDIES:

1. Independently identifies and describes  National Holidays: Memorial Day, Flag Day, and Independence Day.
2. Identify and explain National Monuments: White House & Star Spangled Banner

 

 

SCIENCE:

1.   Explains (verbalizes, draws, or writes) two or more similarities AND differences in plants using observable features.

2.   Recognizes the differences between living and non-living matter.

 

 

Please read to your child for 20 minutes every day…it is the best gift that we can give our kids. For our ESOL students, books in their primary languages are fantastic! Research shows that it is easy to transfer knowledge into English, if the concepts are already formed in the native language.

 

Thank you for all you do!  

January/February 2012 Newsletter

Time to start 2012, and the second half of our Kindergarten year!!! What an exciting time!! The children have come so far, but they still have so much more to learn during this special Kindergarten year!! They are definitely up to the challenge!!

 

IMPORTANT DATES IN JANUARY:

First day back for students: Jan. 10^th, 2012

NO SCHOOL – January 16^th (MLK Holiday)

100th Day - January 27th

 

IMPORTANT DATES IN FEBRUARY:

SCHOOL WIDE FIELD TRIP TO THE CIRCUS– FEBRUARY 17, 2012

NO SCHOOL – February 20^th (Presidents’ Day)

Completed Six Flags Reading Forms due- February 22^nd

Saturday School begins- February 25th

We will begin report card assessments the week of February 27th.

 

The following are concepts that we will be focusing on

during the 3^rd nine weeks of school.

Reading Readiness/ Reading:

1. Students will demonstrate knowledge of the following concepts of print: front/back cover of a book, top /bottom of the page, tracking print from left to right/top to bottom, distinguishing among letters/words/sentences.
2. Identify all the upper case and lower case letters of the alphabet.
3. Distinguish rhyming and non-rhyming words, as well as produce rhyming words.
4. Retell important details from a story, including beginning and ending.
5. Blend and segment syllables in spoken words. Even though your child may not be able to describe it, they should be able to clap out the syllables in their names. This is a fun activity that all our kindergarten classes are exposed to!
6. Indentify and produce all consonant sounds including the “soft G” and “soft C”.
7. Produce and match all 5 short vowel sounds.
8. Blend sounds to read one syllable decodable words.
9. Read 30 or more high frequency words.
10.  Independently read level B texts with 95% accuracy.

 

WRITING:

1. Print first name beginning with uppercase followed by lowercase letters.
2. Accurately print all upper and lowercase letters introduced during the first three quarters.
3. Use left to right pattern in writing, and begins to use punctuation.
4. Writes sentences using phonetically written words to describe familiar persons, places, objects or experiences.

MATHEMATICS:

1. Write numerals through 20 to label sets.

2. Produce modes for number words through ten.

3. Sequence and identify using ordinal numbers (1^st-10^th).

4. Identify and give the value for penny, nickel, dime and quarter.

5. Make fair trades between pennies and nickels AND pennies and dimes.

6. Combine basic figures to form other basic or complex figures,  and decompose basic and complex figures into basic figures.

7. Extend a given pattern, and recognize similarities in different patterns.

SOCIAL STUDIES:

1. Identify and describe National Holidays: Martin Luther King , Jr. Day and President’s Day.
2. Identify and explain National Monuments.
3. Identify where we live: city, county, state, country, continent

 

 SCIENCE:

1. Sort materials into categories based on composition (clay, cloth, paper, plastic, etc) and physical attributes (color, size, shape, weight, textures, buoyancy, flexibility)
2. Describe and group rocks according to their physical attributes (large/small, heavy/light, smooth/rough/dark/light, etc.)

 

 

100^th DAY OF SCHOOL!!!! January 27^th is the 100^th day of school. The Kindergarten classes will be celebrating it in many fun ways: counting by tens to 100, 100^th day glasses and hats, counting sets of 100 items, etc. Be sure to ask your child about the fun things they did on this fun day!

 

 Please read to your child for 20 minutes every day…it is the best gift that we can give our kids. For our ESOL students, books in their primary languages are fantastic! Research shows that it is easy to transfer knowledge into English, if the concepts are already formed in the native language.

 

Thank you for all you do!!

December Newsletter

 

Hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving break with fun-filled family times! Our kids have worked very hard over the last few weeks, and we hope that they are well-rested and ready for the coming weeks of school.

IMPORTANT DATES:

NO SCHOOL: DEC. 22-JAN. 9 - Winter Holidays

First day back: Jan. 10^th, 2012

 

We want your best GET INVOLVED moment - The Georgia Department of Education needs your help in capturing your best GET INVOLVED stories and we want Sedalia Park parents to share their stories.  Look for a form coming home with your student.  Make sure that your story provides details including what happened and who was involved, as well as an explanation why it was your best get involved moment.  Return the form to Frances Jaramillo, Parent Liaison by Monday, December 12th. 

 

Congratulations to our Character Key Kids for the month of November!  Good job showing "Thankfulness!" 

The Character word for the month of December is Generosity. :)

The following are the concepts that we have been focusing for the current 9 weeks of school.

Your child will be assessed on these skills for the upcoming Report Card before the Winter Holidays. 

LANGUAGE ARTS:

In terms of reading readiness,  the main emphasis is on identifying some basic things like the front cover, back cover of book, and top and bottom of the page. Most of our kids have mastered this skill as the teachers review the same while reading to them in large groups, and in guided reading groups every day.

In addition, our students should also be able to identify all the upper case and lower case letters of the alphabet.

Please continue to work with rhyming words at home as this is a fairly difficult skill. 

We have also been learning about syllables and even though your child may not be able to describe it, they should be able to clap out the syllables in their names. This is a fun activity that all our kindergarten classes are exposed to!

Your child is expected to know all 20 caterpillar words for this upcoming report card.  Please review all the sight words your child's teacher has sent home.  Even once the words are learned, practice is still necessary!

WRITING: 

As we continue to write in our journals every day, our kids have made tremendous progress with it. The emphasis here is on sounding out the words to the best of the ability, and not to spell the right way. As your kids start reading more, spelling will automatically improve. We will continue to work on name writing through the course of the year.

MATHEMATICS: 

• The main standard for this current nine week report card is to label sets through 10. If this is too easy for your child, challenge him/her to strive harder. It would be fantastic if your child can label through 20 and beyond!

• We have introduced the dime and its value. Please play simple games with them at home to help them trade ten pennies for a dime. By now, your child should be comfortable trading five pennies for a nickel.

• Another fun addition to our math curriculum is to recognize and name 2- and 3-D figures, including the sphere and the cube.
• As always, patterns are a skill that we will work through the course of the year.

 

SOCIAL STUDIES:

• For our national holidays, we talked about Veterans Day and, of course, Thanksgiving. Thank you to all the parents who could make it to our Thanksgiving luncheon. Our kids looked adorable in their Pilgrim/Indian costumes! As you already know, we love parental involvement at Sedalia.

• The national symbols that we will be learning are the bald eagle and the Statue of Liberty.

Please read to your child for 20 minutes every day…it is the best gift that we can give our kids. For our ESOL students, books in their primary languages are fantastic! Research shows that it is easy to transfer knowledge into English, if the concepts are already formed in the native language.

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND HAVE A WONDERFUL HOLIDAY!

 

 

 

November 2011 Newsletter

Thank you for a wonderful conference week!

We loved bragging about your children and sharing with you all of their exciting growth!

 

Important Dates:  

*Sunday November 6 -- Daylight Savings Time Ends

*Tuesday November 8 -- Election Day - Student Holiday

*Friday, November 11 – Veteran’s Day – We will study this holiday in class.

*Monday November 14 – Friday November 18   Pickle Patch Book Fair

*Tuesday, November 15 – Kindergarten Thanksgiving lunch with parents and grandparents.  You will be notified of the time your child’s class will go to lunch.  COME EARLY!  Each class has only 30 minutes for lunch, and the parking can be a problem!

*Monday November 21 – Friday November 25 - Thanksgiving Holidays – No School

 

 

CHARACTER KEY KID AWARDS

Congratulations to our Key Kids for the month of October.  Great job demonstrating Honesty! 

Our character word for November is “Thankfulness – Appreciate what you have.”

 

 

CURRICULUM - The Big Picture for the Second Nine Weeks:

MATH:                          

Recognition, values, and fair trades with pennies, nickels, and dimes, (10 pennies for a dime.)  Practice with your child  counting coin values using nickels and pennies together, (counting by fives for the nickels, then switching to counting by ones for the pennies.)

Recognition of circles, squares, triangles, and rectangles, cubes, spheres.

Identify missing elements in a pattern. 

 

LANGUAGE ARTS:   

 Read all 20 caterpillar words.

Identify all 26 capital and lower case letter names.

Identify and produce 23 consonant letter sounds.  These include the two sounds of Cc, (“k” and “s”,) and the two sounds of Gg (“g” and “j.”)

Segment syllables in spoken words.  Have your child clap each syllable in words, (example:  Oc-to-ber)

Write all capital and lower case letters introduced so far correctly using top, mid, and base lines. 

 

Please continue to read to your child every night.  Be sure to ask questions afterward.  Here are examples:  “What happened at the beginning, in the middle, at the end?”  “Who was/were the main character(s)?”  “Where was the setting of the story?”  “Was this make believe, (fiction) or true, (non-fiction)?”  This will begin to prepare them for the critical thinking they will need in future grades.

 

Begin teaching your child reasoning skills by thinking out loud when you solve a problem.  “If we take the back roads we can avoid the traffic on the interstate.”  “If we add another can of corn we can be sure there is enough for everyone.”  “If we buy a larger package it may be cheaper, but will we be able to use it before it goes bad?”  These skills don’t come automatically, and can really help your child make good choices and good decisions.

 

 

THANK YOU FOR ALL THAT YOU DO!

October 2011 Newsletter

  


Important Dates:

*Saturday, October 1^st—Saturday School begins. 

*Monday, October 3^rd—Conference Letters go home. Please sign and return.

*Tuesday, October 18^th—11:30 Parent Lunch & Learn Session

*Friday, October 21^st—5:00-8:00 Fall Festival & Art Show

*Oct. 24-28—EARLY DISMISSAL & PARENT CONFERENCES (Dismissal 2 hours early)

 

CHARACTER KEY KID AWARDS

Each month, kindergarten teachers recognize two students from each class who exemplify the character word of the month. At the end of September, 16 students were awarded certificates and buttons for showing “responsibility.” If your child wins a character award, BE PROUD! Not every child will win an award, so winning is a big deal. Winners are recognized in front of the entire grade level, and also get to eat lunch with the principal!  Way to go to our September Key Kids!

 

The character word for the month of October is “honesty.”  Sixteen more students will be rewarded at the end of the month for demonstrating this important characteristic!

 

Sedalia Park 101 - Parent Information Session

October 18th - 10-11:00 am Instructional Room #2

Meet with our school staff to go over important information included in the school handbook. 

 

CURRICULUM - The Big Picture for the First Nine Weeks:

MATH:  

1. Our most challenging Math focus this first nine weeks is recognizing numbers 0-10, as well as making and counting sets from 0-10.  For example: when shown a number your child needs to be able to say “that is the number six!” and then count out 6 items.  When given a set of items your child also needs to be able to count them and then be able to write the number to match the set.  This sounds pretty simple, but many students still struggle with this.  Any extra practice you give your child at home is always appreciated!  Make it fun…remember anything you have around the house can be counted! 

2. Your child will also be assessed in October on ordinal numbers…first through tenth.  So, when shown a line of objects they should able to point to each when given an ordinal in random order. 

3. Your child will also be assessed at the end of the grading period on the name and value of a penny and nickel. Your child will also need to know that we can trade 5 pennies for 1 nickel.  You can make it fun at home!! Give your child 10 pennies and let them "buy" items for less than 10 cents. If you sell them an item for 5 cents talk with them about using 5 pennies or 1 nickel.

LANGUAGE ARTS:

1. **At the end of this first nine week period your child is expected to know at least 15 capital letters and at least 15 lowercase letters as well as be able to read 10 caterpillar words. Any extra practice at home is always appreciated! The Caterpillar word list is attached to our K webpage.**

2. Please have your child practice writing his/her first name. Kindergarteners are expected to write their first names beginning with a capital letter followed by all lowercase letters on the lines. If you feel that your child’s fine motor skills are weak here are some suggestions:

    • Draw a shape, a number, or our letter of the week on a sheet of construction paper. Have your child use a hole puncher to punch holes while staying on the lines.

    • Mold shapes or letters using clay or play dough.

3. Reading to your child every night is a wonderful way to strengthen their reading and comprehension skills...plus it is so much fun! 

 

THANK YOU FOR ALL THAT YOU DO!

 

September 2011 Newsletter

 

   
Important Dates:

September 5th: Labor Day Holiday - ask your child why we celebrate this day!

September 10th: East Cobb Parade 

  

September 16th: Fall Picture Day

 

September 27th: K Parent Information Session

"Off to a good start"

September 30th: Spanish Session

Parents will go over basic information shared during parent orientation, kindergarten handbook and online resources to get their Kindergarten student off to a good start.  School resources to use at home will be available to check out such as: Read Together Take home pack, Leap Pad and more.

  

When: Tuesday, 9/27 11:00-12:00

           Friday, 9/30  11:00-12:00 (session in spanish)

  

Location: Parent Resource Center (IR#2)

For more information Frances.jaramillo@cobbk12.org or www.sedaliapark.typepad.com/parental_involvement

 

 
September 28th: K to the Fair

 
On Wednesday, September 28th we will be taking a Kindergarten field trip to the North Georgia Fair. The price is $5 per child.  

We know this is your child's first field trip in Kindergarten...but no worries…we do not ride any rides! We begin our trip with a calm hayride, we take a look at some farm and zoo animals, we look at the arts and crafts, watch the pig races, eat lunch, and go home. We are generally only one of two or three school groups present at the time. Please know that your child is in good hands on this laid back field trip.  Still nervous?  You are welcome to join us! 

 

CURRICULUM - The Big Picture for the First Nine Weeks:

MATH:  

1. Our most challenging Math focus this first nine weeks is recognizing numbers 0-10, as well as making and counting sets from 0-10.  For example: when shown a number your child needs to be able to say “that is the number six!” and then count out 6 items.  When given a set of items your child also needs to be able to count them and then be able to write the number to match the set.  This sounds pretty simple, but many students still struggle with this.  Any extra practice you give your child at home is always appreciated!  Make it fun…remember anything you have around the house can be counted! 

2. Your child will also be assessed in October on ordinal numbers…first through tenth.  So, when shown a line of objects they should able to point to each when given an ordinal in random order. 

3. Your child will also be assessed at the end of the grading period on the name and value of a penny and nickel. Your child will also need to know that we can trade 5 pennies for 1 nickel.  You can make it fun at home!! Give your child 10 pennies and let them "buy" items for less than 10 cents. If you sell them an item for 5 cents talk with them about using 5 pennies or 1 nickel.

LANGUAGE ARTS:

1. **At the end of this first nine week period your child is expected to know at least 15 capital letters and at least 15 lowercase letters as well as be able to read 10 caterpillar words. Any extra practice at home is always appreciated! The Caterpillar word list is attached to our K webpage.**

2. Please have your child practice writing his/her first name. Kindergarteners are expected to write their first names beginning with a capital letter followed by all lowercase letters on the lines. If you feel that your child’s fine motor skills are weak here are some suggestions:

    • Draw a shape, a number, or our letter of the week on a sheet of construction paper. Have your child use a hole puncher to punch holes while staying on the lines.

    • Mold shapes or letters using clay or play dough.

3. Reading to your child every night is a wonderful way to strengthen their reading and comprehension skills...plus it is so much fun! 

 

   
  We are off to a great start and we LOVE working with your children! 

Thank you for all you do and for all your support! 

Welcome to Kindergarten!

 

            

Welcome to our wonderful Park family.  We are so excited to get to know your child in these first few weeks of school!  We know this is going to be a fabulous year filled with lots of learning and growth!

  Please plan to join us for our Kindergarten Open House on Tuesday, August 16th at 6:30 pm. 

You will be given a wealth of information and have all your important questions answered by your classroom teachers.  We are looking forward to seeing you there!

Kindergarten Word Clubs

Caterpillar Word List
Chrysalis Word List
Butterfly Word List